Instead of running heavy MC simulation, the proxy-based approach estimates the influence spread of given users
via
the proxy models. Precisely, this approach is aligned with a specific diffusion model (e.g., IC model), and the influence spread estimation process of given users is highly accelerated by taking advantage of the properties of the corresponding models. Intuitively, there are two branches of the proxy-based approaches, including
(1) Estimate the influence spread of given users by transforming it to easier problems (e.g., Degree and PageRank) [1]}, [2]};
and (2) Simplify the typical diffusion model (e.g., IC model) to a deterministic model (e.g., MIA model) [1]} or restrict the influence propagation range of given users under the typical diffusion model to the local subgraph [4]} to precisely compute the influence spread of given users.
Compared with the simulation-based approach, the proxy-based approach offers higher performance, but lacks theoretical guarantees.
The proxy-based approach has been used in [5]}, [6]}, [7]}, [8]}, [9]}, [10]}. We introduce the details of these
efforts
as follows.
